


To Melt A Heart

by SummerStormFlower



Category: Original Work
Genre: Best Friends, Bullying, Developing Friendships, Male-Female Friendship, Metaphors, Other, Personal Growth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:35:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28485477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerStormFlower/pseuds/SummerStormFlower
Summary: A small story about transforming a bully into a friend.Description: Drake is arrogant and selfish, until a red-haired girl named Tatum shows up in his life. He learns about friendship and kindness, and his heart changes.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 4





	1. Tatum and The King

**Author's Note:**

> Very short chapters!

Drake doesn’t like Tatum the first time he meets her. Until she’d shown up, everyone had treated him like the king he was. He was the smartest, the greatest, and the hottest. If someone didn’t like him, he did something about it. However, those glorious days end when he meets Tatum.

_“King?!”_ Tatum bursts into laughter, throwing her head back, her short hair like red rain flowing down the back of her neck. “You’ve gotta be kidding me! That’s a good one.”

Drake doesn’t like her at all.


	2. Inside Jokes

On second thought, Tatum isn’t so bad.

“Professor Willis waxes his legs.”

Drake arches an eyebrow at her. He looks up at the front to check if the professor is looking, and leans forward when he’s not.

“How can you tell?”

Tatum tilts her head back, a smirk on her face. “Because I can see my reflection in them.”

Drake has to cover his mouth to stifle his laugh.

Tatum isn’t so bad. Not that Drake would ever admit it.


	3. Stick Men with Stupid Hairdos

Drake is bored, so he entertains himself by balling up little slips of paper and tossing them at Tatum’s head. Each one has a short message written on it; teasing words about her height, her freckles, her red hair.

She hides them from the teacher under her textbook, and reads them in secret. Drake watches her expressions change. She grins at some of them, rolls her eyes at others, glares, and pouts.

Just to see her reaction, he passes her a note without any writing on it, and nearly bursts into laughter when she frowns.

He feels good, knowing he can get under her skin. She should be honoured he deems her amusing enough to bug.

When the bell rings, and class is dismissed, Tatum stands up and walks over to his desk, spilling all the notes on his lap.

“Hey!” he shouts. He tries to catch them, but most of them end up on the floor.

“Enjoy,” she says with a smirk, leaving him to clean up the mess by himself.

While Drake picks up the pieces of paper, he notices that Tatum has drawn stick men with stupid hairdos over the words.

He knows they’re supposed to be him.


	4. The Ground

“Wouldn’t it be cool to touch the clouds?” Tatum asks.

They’re in a tree on the schoolyard, Tatum above him, swinging her legs near his head.

“Maybe. I prefer the ground though.”

“Oh? Interesting.”

Drake frowns up at her. “What is?”

Tatum grins. “A _king_ who’d rather be on the same level as his people.”

It is both amazing and irritating how she can do that.

“Shut up,” he tells her.

Because he can’t think of anything else to say.


	5. Humility

Once again, Drake is back to not liking Tatum. He’s always been a king, and everyone has always listened to what he says. It’s an honour to talk to him, to look at him, to even be in the same room as him.

**“Apologize.”**

Drake gives Tatum a curious look. There’s someone else with her, sniffling, his glasses smudged with tears. He looks like a freshman, and seems vaguely familiar.

“For what?”

Tatum’s green eyes narrow. Her nose is scrunched up and her mouth is in a tight line. It didn’t take a genius to see that she was angry. Very angry.

“For calling Henry a loser, for stealing his stuff, and for pushing him in a garbage can.”

Drake frowns. “Why?”

He was a king. He could do whatever he wanted.

Tatum steps into his personal space, and despite being a head shorter than him, the aura around her unsettles him. Tatum isn’t like the other girls Drake knows. He saw her lift a fallen bookcase off the librarian by herself.

“Because it was rude and childish of you.”

Drake opens his mouth to retort. How dare she talk to _him_ like that?!

_**“** _ _**No excuses!”** _

Drake flinches. Not because he’s afraid of Tatum, but because her suddenly yelling at him gave him a start.

_Not because he’s afraid of Tatum._

“You made him cry.”

Drake gulps. He glances at the boy, and he feels _something._ _Guilt?_ Why would _he_ feel _guilty_? A king had no need for emotions like that.

“Apologize right now, Drake. Unless you wanna do this all day.”

He’d rather not do this _at all._ What is the big deal anyway?

Judging by Tatum’s expression, it... might be a bigger deal than he thought.

For the first time in Drake’s entire life, he apologizes to someone, trying to ignore the stares, and the heat in his face, and the heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach.


	6. The King's Birthday

Drake’s birthday is pretty much a holiday for him. He gets all sorts of presents, everybody compliments him, and wishes him an awesome day.

_“It’s your birthday?”_

Drake gawks at Tatum _. “_ _ **Yes!**_ _Yes, it is!”_

“Oh.” Tatum chugs down the rest of her juice, then burps in Drake’s face. “Okay then.”

Drake has a total and justified fit.

“You didn’t even tell me when your birthday is,” Tatum says in defence.

“Everybody knows when my birthday is! You should’ve heard about it!”

“Good lord, you are such a drama queen. Please God, make him stop.”

Because of Tatum, the rest of Drake’s day is utterly terrible.

  
  


The next day, Tatum says, “Here.”

Drake looks up just in time to see her toss a bag of licorice his way. He scampers to catch it, accidentally opening it mid-air. Luckily, nothing falls out.

“Happy late birthday, moron.”

She gives him a backwards wave, as she leaves for her first class.

Drake picks a lanky piece of licorice from the bag and takes a bite out of it, tasting cherry on his tongue.

She took the time to buy him a present. And it was something he really liked too... He should thank her later.


	7. Lonely Kings

What _makes_ a king? Drake finds himself wondering.

Ever since he met Tatum, things have changed. He’s changed. Rather than doing whatever he wants, he thinks before he acts. He always asks himself, _“would Tatum approve of this?”_ Instead of shoving freshmen into trash cans, stealing their books, and making them cry, he treats them nicely. Because that’s what Tatum does.

He doesn’t boss his friends around anymore. He doesn’t gloat about himself anymore. He doesn’t speak to people like they’re less important than him anymore.

Drake doesn’t know what Tatum did to him, but he doesn’t think she’s done anything bad.

Although he’d never admit it out loud, being a king was kind of lonely. Now Drake feels more connected to reality. When he talks to people, he _really looks_ at them. And he _listens_ to them. He’s learned things about his classmates, who he’s known all his life, that he never knew before.

He feels different. He feels new.

He feels good.

Does that mean he’s not King Drake anymore? What made him King Drake in the first place anyways?

Suddenly, he’s pulled out of his thoughts by an insistent tapping on his cheek.

“What ya thinkin’?” Tatum asks, poking his face again.

They’re eating lunch together outside on the hill overlooking the basketball court.

Drake bats her hand away. “How could you tell?”

“That you’re thinking about something?” Tatum steals his sandwich and takes an obscenely large bite out of it.

He lets her.

“Easy,” she says, handing him back his sandwich. There’s hardly half of it left. She’s eaten all of her lunch and most of his, while he’s maybe had three crackers. “You have your thinking hat on.” She taps the side of her head, grinning.

“But how can you tell?” Drake asks again.

It’s like she has a superpower when it comes to him.

Tatum shrugs and lays down, using her arms as a pillow. “I just know you that well.”

Drake blinks. _I just know you that well._

“So, what were you thinking?” Tatum then asks, sitting up to steal his sandwich again.

Drake decides to let her have the rest of it. “About what makes a king.”

“What makes a king?”

“Yeah.”

Tatum finishes his sandwich, then takes his cookie. She stares at it for a moment. “I don’t think it matters what makes the king. I think it matters more _what makes the person_ ,” she says.

“What makes the person?” Drake repeats.

Tatum smiles. “The person is _always_ more important than the title.”

That... makes sense.

“You know,” Tatum continues, taking Drake’s last cucumber, “I like Drake a lot more than King Drake.”

Drake doesn’t know how to respond to that.

It is both amazing and irritating how she does that.


	8. Fall of The King

It takes a black eye and shattered self-esteem for Drake to realize that he was never a king. He was a bully.

How could he have been so blind? It was so obvious, looking back. Yet it took him years to see it. He sees it now.

He’s such an idiot.

He’s a horrible person.

The school bell rings, but Drake ignores it. He curls in tighter on himself, as if trying to meld into the bathroom wall.

He should honestly just disappear. Give the people he’s hurt the justice they deserve. He’d be doing the world a favour, really. People like him don’t deserve a place in the world.

Drake’s phone dings with a text message. He ignores it at first. Then his phone dings about fifty times and he finally looks at it.

It’s Tatum.

  
  


_Where are you?_

  
  


_I heard about the fight._

  
  


_Are you okay?_

  
  


_Are you hurt?_

  
  


_Are you dead?_

  
  


_I swear, if you don’t answer my texts—_

  
  


Drake texts her back just to make her shut up.

  
  


_I’m in the bathroom._

  
  


Hardly a minute later, Tatum comes running into the boys’ washroom.

“You can’t be in here!” Drake cries.

“You think I care?” Tatum says back.

She kneels down to him and takes his chin in her hand, studying the bruising around his eye.

A dangerous gleam flashes in her eyes. “Who did this?”

Drake looks down. “It doesn’t matter.”

Tatum smacks his head.

Drakes gapes at her, like a shocked child who’d just received a scolding. “What was that for?!” he exclaims.

“Of course it matters! You matter!” Tatum says sternly.

Drake deflates at her words, knowing how undeserving he is of them.

“I bullied people,” he mutters, guilt welling up in his heart, “So it doesn’t matter if people bully me back.”

Tatum blinks. Then she crosses her arms. “So you’re running away,” she says.

What?

Drake frowns at her.

“You took a swing at a few people, so you’re gonna let them punch you back!” Tatum gestures angrily at his eye.

Drake, unsure, nods in affirmative slowly. He knows that’s not the response Tatum wanted because she smacks his shoulder. At least it wasn’t his head this time.

“That’s not how it works!”

“Why are you mad?” Drake is completely baffled.

Tatum drags both of her hands down her face, groaning. “Justice is not _an eye for an eye_ ,” she says.

That doesn’t make any sense.

Tatum gives Drake a soft look. “Justice is apologizing for your past mistakes and doing better in the future.”

...Oh. That made sense.

Drake sighs heavily, sliding down the bathroom wall and slouching. Tatum slouches beside him. They stay like that for awhile.

Then Drake admits to her, “I don’t know how to do that.”

“I’ll help you,” Tatum promises.

Drake turns to her. “Why?”

_Why have you been so nice to me? Why do you hang out with me? Why do you insist I matter? Why are you such a good person?_

Tatum looks him in the eye. “Because we’re best friends.”

_Because we’re_ _best_ _friends._

It takes a redheaded tomboy and all of her glorious sass for Drake to realize that he’s actually never had a best friend before.


	9. Drake and Tatum

Tatum claps her hands and Drake can’t help but cringe at the volume of it. He’s starting to really regret agreeing to this idea. It’d sounded like a good idea at the time, but now it just feels childish.

...Or, he might just be embarrassed.

All of their classmates are staring at them now. Luckily, they’re in Professor Claire’s classroom today, who always falls asleep at her desk. So, that’s at least one pair of eyes not on them.

Although, Drake really has some apologizing to do to his teachers too. He hasn’t been... the easiest student. Before Tatum, at least.

Damn, he owed her a lot.

Tatum gently closes the door behind her. “Drake has something he wants to say,” she announces.

All eyes are on Drake now.

Tatum bumps her shoulder against his. She gives him an encouraging smile.

Drake takes a deep breath. For the second time in his life, Drake apologizes.

  
  


It goes surprisingly well. He apologizes for everything he can remember. It’s not very poetic, but it is genuine and sincere.

And it’s enough.

The kid he stuffed in a trash can, Tatum’s friend Henry, actually smiles at him and forgives him out loud.

It... makes Drake feel warm on the inside.

He has to make sure that the kid’s forgiveness isn’t in vain.

“ _It isn’t,”_ Tatum tells him when they’re walking home together, _“I promise it isn’t.”_

  
  


“Is there anyone else?” Tatum asks, as they trudge down the street. The corner up ahead is where they have to go in separate directions to get home.

“My teachers,” Drake replies.

Tatum leans into him, her weight throwing him off balance.

“Think you can handle it?” she grins up at him teasingly.

Drake shoves her off him. “As long as you’re with me,” he says.

Drake’s learned that best friends have the power to make you feel invincible.

“Sap!” laughs Tatum. Then she gives him her softest smile. “I’ll be there.”

Drake knows she will.


	10. Forever

“We’re gonna get in so much trouble,” Drake complains.

“Shut up, we’re being cool,” says Tatum.

Drake scoffs, “How is _this_ cool?”

Tatum stops and looks down at him. “Admit it. You’ve always wanted to do this.”

Drake stops climbing, raising his eyebrow up at her. “I’ve never wanted to fall off the school and die. _Shockingly_.”

Tatum rolls her eyes. “We’re not gonna fall,” she says and starts climbing again.

Drake sighs. He still follows her.

Once they make it to the roof, it’s actually not that bad. The sky looks closer and far away at the same time, and sunrise is a pretty sight to behold. Oranges, reds and pinks paint the horizon.

Tatum sits down on the edge and throws her legs over the side. Drake sits beside her, but stays a fair amount away from the edge.

“I’m proud of you, ya know?” Tatum says, giving him a grin.

“I still have a lot of work to do on myself,” Drake protests. He’s doing better, but he’s a work-in-progress.

“I know. Still proud of you,” Tatum says.

Drake feels warm at that.

“So... got any food?”

Drake rolls his eyes and digs into his backpack. He tosses his sandwich at Tatum.

“Yay!” she giggles, and tears open the wrapping.

Drake bites his lip. “Is... Henry coming?” he asks nervously.

“Yeah!” Tatum says around a mouthful of sandwich, “He’s just taking longer cuz’ he’s never done anything rebellious in his life.”

Drake nods, swallowing. “Okay.”

Tatum swats his shoulder. “It’ll be fine!” she reassures, “A beautiful friendship will be born.”

“Between me and him? I don’t know...”

Tatum jabs her finger right between Drake’s eyebrows. “Stop stressing.”

“Ow.”

“He wants to be friends! You’ve got nothing to worry about. Just talk to him.”

Drake sighs, unconvinced. “What will we even talk about?” he asks.

“Stop worrying,” Tatum tells him again. She backs away from the edge and scoots closer to him, sprawling herself across his lap. “Eat some,” she says, holding up her sandwich.

Drake takes it and takes a couple bites before Tatum grabs it back. So greedy.

“Do you like the sunset or the sunrise better?” she asks, as they watch the sun rise higher and higher in the sky.

Drake shrugs. “Not sure.”

Tatum hums and eats the last of the sandwich. She snaps her fingers in front of Drake’s face. “More food.”

“No!” Drake exclaims, making Tatum laugh. “How can you even eat this early in the morning?”

Tatum sighs happily, her laughter dying down. “Okay, fine. No more food,” she says. Then she hiccups.

Drake groans. He grabs his water from his backpack and gives it to Tatum. “Honestly,” he says with a teasing smirk, “what would you do without me?”

Tatum takes a drink, then hands him his bottle back. “Guess I’m lucky it’s you and me forever,” she says.

“What are we, married?”

“Gross.”

Drake laughs. If they’re going to be best friends forever, he better remember to carry food on him at _all times_. Even so, being friends forever... sounds pretty good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
